People We Meet On Vacation is a romance that's all vacation, no people

Lately, someone in Hollywood seems to have decided that the best way to save the rom-com genre is to simply put hot actors in foreign countries. In the past four years, George Clooney and Julia Roberts jetted to Bali, Sydney Sweeney and Glen Powell flirted through Sydney, Jennifer Lopez and Josh Duhamel got hitched in the Philippines, Laura Dern and Liam Hemsworth explored the streets of Morocco, and KJ Apa and Madelyn Cline backpacked through Spain. Call it the Crazy Rich Asians effect, or maybe just a last-gasp attempt to milk a free trip out of a wavering genre, but travelogue romances are all the rage. And Netflix’s People We Meet On Vacation takes that ethos to its extreme by porting the plot of When Harry Met Sally into a non-linear itinerary that includes Boston, Barcelona, New Orleans, New York City, Tuscany, the wilderness of Canada, and Linfield, Ohio. Unfortunately, all that globe- and time-hopping can’t bulk up a movie so thin it would barely even count as a carry-on.

Based on a bestselling 2021 novel by Emily Henry, People We Meet On Vacation is at least made with a palpable sense of passion from director Brett Haley and stars Tom Blyth and Emily Bader. It’s clear that all three really, really want this movie to be the next breakout romantic hit. But the finished project is missing that X-factor of wit and chemistry that can turn a basic plot into something shimmering. While recent winners like All Of You have proven there’s still juice in the classic friends-to-lovers template, watching People We Meet On Vacation feels more like ordering a sparkling tropical cocktail and getting served tap water. 

Curiously enough, no one actually meets on vacation in the cumbersomely titled film. Instead, whimsical free-spirit Poppy (Bader) and uptight introvert Alex (Blyth) meet on a When Harry Met Sally-style road trip from Boston College to their shared hometown in Ohio. Though they couldn’t be more different—she likes messy breakfast burritos, he likes obsessing over traffic—an overnight stay at one of those classic there’s-only-one-bed motels endears them to one another. They strike up a friendship that they decide to keep alive by taking one big vacation together each summer, no matter what jobs they have or who they’re dating. 

We experience those nine summers of trips from the vantage point of “this summer,” where Poppy and Alex are barely on speaking terms ahead of his brother’s wedding in Barcelona. As they meet-awkward at the airport, flashbacks fill us in on the shifting nature of their friendship and the details of their current estrangement, which gives the film a bit of a mystery angle to go along with its rom-com core. It’s a clever enough structure for a romance, the trouble is there’s no sense of humanity driving it. 

Poppy’s job as an all-expenses-paid travel writer for a glossy magazine would have felt dated in the early 2000s, let alone now. And though the film spans nearly a decade, there’s no era-specific fashion or pop culture references to fill us in on the passage of time. In our current media landscape, Poppy’s lavish trips would make more sense if she were an influencer rather than a print journalist. But because the film is aiming for something more timeless, it winds up feeling contextless too, which hurts the specificity of who Alex and Poppy are as people and why they don’t just date each other rather than taking increasingly flirty trips together. 

Bader and Blyth try to fill in the gaps by smoldering and smiling and looking deep into one another’s eyes. And there are moments between them that work—like an over-the-top dance in a New Orleans bar or a passionate argument in the rain or a sweet scene where he comes to take care of her while she’s sick. But the actors’ clear desire to sell themselves as hot, confident movie stars undercuts the stakes of their romance. When Poppy beautifully sighs that she’s going to die alone, it just doesn’t hit the same as Meg Ryan messily blubbering into Billy Crystal’s shoulder. 

One of the pitfalls of modern romantic comedies is that they too often value hotness and charm over the true necessities for a rom-com lead: vulnerability and comedic timing. And while Bader and Blyth aren’t totally missing the latter, People We Meet On Vacation doesn’t spend enough time letting them show off those skills. There’s a lot of dialogue about how Poppy loosens Alex up while he gives her the structure and support she’s missing in her indecisive, nomadic life. But there’s too much telling and not enough showing when it comes to what makes their relationship so special. Not even glowy cinematography from Rob Givens or a needledrop of Taylor Swift’s “August” can make up the difference. 

As low-stakes viewing about two blandly likable people, People We Meet On Vacation at least looks better than the cheapest level of streaming rom-coms, and fans of the book will probably find something to like. Ironically, however, its place on Netflix means it’ll miss out on its truest calling as a film you half-watch on a plane.

Director: Brett Haley
Writer: Yulin Kuang, Amos Vernon, Nunzio Randazzo
Starring: Emily Bader, Tom Blyth, Lukas Gage, Jameela Jamil, Alan Ruck, Molly Shannon
Release Date: January 9, 2026 (Netflix)

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